The present invention relates to printable sheet constructions which are adapted to be fed into printers or copiers and indicia printed on different portions thereof and the portions thereafter separated into separate printed media, such as business cards. It further is concerned with methods for making those printing sheet constructions. Additionally, it relates to methods of using the sheet constructions to form the printed cards.
Small size media, such as business cards, ROLODEX-type card file cards, party invitations and visitors cards, because of their small format, cannot be fed into and easily printed using today's ink jet printers, laser printers, photocopiers and other ordinary printing and typing machines. Therefore, one known method of producing small size media has been to print the desired indicia on different portions of a large sheet such as 8½ by 11 or 8½ by 14 or A4 size sheets, and then to cut the sheets with some type of cutting machine into the different portions or individual small size sheets or media with the printing on each of them. However, this method is disadvantageous because the user must have access to such a cutting machine, and the separate cutting step is cost and time inefficient.
To avoid this cutting step, another prior art product has the portions of the sheet which define the perimeters of the media (e.g., the business cards) formed by preformed perforation lines. (See, e.g., PCT International Publication No. WO 97/40979.) However, a problem with this product was that since these cards must be durable and professional looking, they had to be made from relatively thick and heavy paper. And the thick, heavy perforated sheets are relatively inflexible, such that they cannot be fed from a stack of such sheets using automatic paper feeders into the printers and copiers. One proposed solution to this feeding problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,317 ('317) to Hickenbotham. (This patent and all other patents and other publications mentioned anywhere in this disclosure are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.) The method of the '317 patent reduces the stiffness of the corners of the sheet as by scoring, slitting, die cutting or calendering. However, a number of problems with this method prevented it from becoming generally commercially acceptable.
Another attempted solution to the sheet feeding problem is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,571,587 ('587) to Bishop et al. (See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,481 to Holmberg et al.) Pursuant to the '587 patent the sheetstock has a relatively thin portion on at least one of the longitudinal edges thereof which facilitates feeding the sheetstock into a printer or copier. The thin portion is removed from the sheet after printing. The individual printed cards are then separated from one another by pulling or tearing along the preformed microperforated lines. While the perforation ties remaining along the edges of the printed cards thereby formed are small, they are perceptible, giving the card a less than professional appearance and feel.
A card sheet construction which uses clean cut edges instead of the less desirable perforated edges is commercially available from Max Seidel and from Promaxx/“Paper Direct”, and an example of this product is shown in the drawings by FIGS. 1–3. (See Canadian Patent Publication No. 2,148,553 (MTL Modern Technologies Lizenz GmbH); see also German DE.42.40.825.A1.) Referring to these drawing figures, the prior art product is shown generally at 100. It includes a sheetstock 102, divided by widthwise and lengthwise cut lines 104 in columns and rows of cards 110, surrounded by a perimeter frame 112. On the back side 114 of the sheetstock 102, thin carrier element strips 116 made of polyester are glued with adhesive 118 along and over the widthwise cut lines. These strips 116 hold the cards 110 and the frame 112 together when the sheetstock 102 is fed into a printer or copier as shown generally at 120. After the sheetstock 100 has been fed into the printer or copier 120 and the desired indicia printed on the cards 110, the cards are peeled off of and away from the strips 116 and frame 112. After all of the cards 110 have been so removed from the sheetstock 102, the left-over material formed by the strips 116 and the frame 112 is discarded as waste material.
One of the problems with the prior art sheet product 100 is that printers have difficulty picking the sheets up, resulting in the sheets being misfed into the printers. In other words, it is difficult for the infeed rollers to pull the sheets past the separation tabs within the printers. Feeding difficulties are also caused by curl of the sheetstock 102 back onto itself. The “curl” causes the leading edge of the sheet to bend back and flex over the separation tabs. Since the sheetstock 102 is a relatively stiff product, it is difficult for the infeed rollers of the printer 120 to handle this problem.
Another problem with the prior art sheet 100 is a start-of-sheet, off-registration problem. In other words, the print is shifted up or down from its expected desired starting position below the top of the sheet. This off-registration problem is often related to the misfeeding problem discussed in the paragraph above. This is because if the printer is having difficulty picking up the sheet, the timing of the printer is effected. And this causes the print to begin at different places on the sheet, which is unacceptable to the users.